“MY NAME IS 010180,” SAID the friendly robot. “But you can call me 0.”
Category: Writing
My own serious stuff; the craft itself; those who inspire me in it; the art of reading.
Around The Rimless Sea: Folk
FOLLOWING ON THE INFORMATION REVEALED in “Who Is This Prosatio Silban, And What Does he Want?” here is a chart listing the Exilic Lands’ inhabitants. It’s meant as a quick reference rather than a last word. Attentive readers will recognize…
The Poet
HE COULDN’T TELL WHETHER HE loved beauty or women more until the day he called his mom and said “Guess what? I’m marrying a sunset.”
Storyteller’s Knot
THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF any story is the point at which it’s attached to the reader.
Thumbs Up
THE PACK ON YOUR BACK is both reassuring and cumbersome for what seems the third hour of shadeless noon as you think, “This one will definitely stop.” (Actually, if it were really three hours you’d have slumped your pack against…
Another Great Line In Search Of Context
“I SEE YOUR LOGIC, MADAM, and raise you a contradiction.” (Line derived from conversation with Ann, whose blog is also very cool. — The Mgt.)
Gritty Comfortoir
AND AFTER ALL IS SAID and done, and the horrible truth revealed The bodies taken away, the last question answered Comes William S Burroughs (the gravelly graandpa who’s done things the grownups won’t let you ask him about). “Interdimensional Alka…
Who Is This Prosatio Silban, And What Does He Want?
IT ALL STARTED IN 2005, when I decided to write fantasy tales. Or maybe 1995, when I was bored with the between-task tedium of printer’s work. (Of course, it really started in 1977, because that was the year I discovered…
Fable, With Apocalypse
IN THE MIDDLE OF A flat grey wasteland, under a grey streaky sky, a handful of figures warmed themselves at a snapping fire. “Hey! What are you doing?” One of the figures had turned to stare across the waste —…
Aside
“GOOD GOD, MAN — WHAT HAPPENED?” “Well, I was on the freeway, and my car stalled right in front of a hurtling semi. Fortunately, the orchestra changed tunes at exactly that moment and distracted everyone.” “What orchestra?” “See?”
What I Stand, For
HAVING JUST RECEIVED ORDERS FROM Fearless Leader to define my principles in 106 characters or less and then disperse them yea seedlike to the multitudes, I replied as follows: Clearer thinking. Don’t litter. Say “please” and “thank you” and mean…
NextWave SF: “Retropunk”
FIRST CAME CYBERPUNK. THEN STEAMPUNK. And by 2021, … RETROPUNK. Shiny robots. Gleaming atom-powered spaceships. Martian canal races. Alien arcologies in the jungles of Venus. Male pronouns. All the glory of a big exploitable universe sans angst or post-apocalypse modernism.…